Tuesday, November 13, 2012

By Patrick O’Connor 13 November 2012

The
Australian Labor government is preparing to modify its flagship
neo-colonial intervention in the South Pacific, the Regional Assistance
Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). Nearly 10 years after first
dispatching hundreds of troops, federal police and government officials
to take over the impoverished country’s state apparatus, Canberra is
winding down RAMSI’s military component. The “transition” is aimed at
ensuring the continued domination of Australian imperialism over
political and economic life in the Solomon Islands.

RAMSI
involves personnel from different Pacific countries, but is controlled
by Australia. There are currently fewer than 100 Australian soldiers on
Solomon Islands, nearly 200 Australian Federal Police (AFP) and more
than 100 civilian personnel, including officials working in key
positions within the legal system, finance and treasury departments, and
other parts of the public service. All have immunity from local laws.

The
RAMSI operation commenced in July 2003, with the former Australian
government of Prime Minister John Howard intervening in violation of
international and Solomon Islands’ law. Cloaked in humanitarian claims
about putting an end to civil conflict, the predatory operation was
centrally aimed at bolstering Canberra’s hegemony in the South Pacific
and shutting out rival powers from its “patch”, amid heightened
geo-strategic rivalries across the region. The Australian government
disarmed the Solomons’ police force and took control of its prison and
judicial systems, central bank and finance department, and the public
service.
Now, in the most significant recasting of the operation
since its inception, RAMSI’s military component will be withdrawn in
the second half of 2013. Also next year, RAMSI will no longer have its
own “development” agenda. Instead, aid and other programs will be run
bilaterally, via the Australian High Commission in Honiara. RAMSI’s
policing component, the Participating Police Force, will continue
operations at least until 2014, and likely for much longer than that.

The
“transition” is being accompanied by rhetoric from the Solomon Islands
government of Prime Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo about the need to prepare
for the eventual withdrawal of the entire intervention force.
In
reality, the Australian government has no perspective of ever leaving
the Solomons. Foreign Minister Bob Carr visited RAMSI headquarters in
August and declared: “Australia is going to be here to help Solomon
Islands and its people for as long as they need our help ... We’re not
going to withdraw. And RAMSI’s police function is going to continue for a
long time after the military function is phased out.”

None of
the underlying strategic issues that triggered Canberra’s decision to
intervene in 2003 have been resolved. China enjoys closer diplomatic,
economic and military ties with many South Pacific states than it did a
decade ago. Moreover, the Obama administration’s “pivot” to the
Asia-Pacific, involving an aggressive drive to contain Chinese
influence, has placed further pressure on Canberra to fulfil the task
assigned to it by Washington ever since the end of World War II—that of
shutting out rival powers from the region.
The modifications to
RAMSI are aimed at making the intervention force more cost efficient.
For some time, RAMSI troops have comprised mostly reservists, and their
Solomons’ deployments have functioned as expensive training exercises.

Patrick O'Connor - On RAMSI

"
Cloaked in humanitarian claims about putting an end to civil conflict, the predatory operation was centrally aimed at bolstering Canberra’s hegemony in the South Pacific and shutting out rival powers from its “patch”, amid heightened geo-strategic rivalries across the region.
"

The
AFP has long been Canberra’s primary enforcer on the ground in the
Solomons, including its heavily armed paramilitary wing, the
International Deployment Group. The federal police were centrally
involved in the Australian government’s 2006-2007 regime change
operation against Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare that included the
persecution of his attorney general, Julian Moti. Sogavare and Moti were
targeted after being perceived as threats to RAMSI’s untrammelled
dominance in the country.
Australian Defence Minister Stephen
Smith, touring the Solomons in April, said the “orderly drawdown” of
soldiers would leave “the very strong presence” of the AFP, which would
“continue to be on the ground for any required response.” Smith added
that the Labor government was looking to a new “defence cooperation
program” in the Solomons, potentially involving regular Australian
military visits or exercises.
Contingency plans are no doubt in
place for a renewed military intervention in the event that Canberra
regards its strategic position under threat.

It remains unclear
how many, if any, of the Australian officials now implanted in different
parts of the Solomons’ state apparatus will be withdrawn as part of the
“transition”. So-called development assistance, which has included the
lucrative salaries of AFP officers and RAMSI personnel—classified as
Australian “aid”—will be removed from the intervention force’s brief.
But RAMSI Special Coordinator Nicholas Coppel indicated this would allow
for greater control from Canberra. “It’s been difficult to do very long
term development assistance work when its horizon has been limited to a
four-year budget cycle in Australia,” he stated. “Moving development
assistance across to our normal AusAID bilateral program enables us to
do much more long term planning for Solomon Islands.”

One of the
aims of the RAMSI “transition” is to boost Australian corporate
investment. Coppel told the Australia-Solomon Islands Business Forum in
Brisbane last month that the changes marked “a clear signal that Solomon
Islands is back in business” and demonstrated that the country’s
economy would no longer be dominated by “an interventionist,
post-conflict model of development assistance.”

Mining activity
is being stepped up across the Solomons. A small Australian mining
company, Allied Gold, now operates the Gold Ridge mine on Guadalcanal
Island. Another Australian company, Axiom Mining, plans to soon begin
work in Santa Isabel on one of the world’s largest nickel deposits,
worth an estimated $60 billion. Mining companies from Britain, South
Africa and Japan are exploring for gold, nickel, copper and other
reserves, including on the seafloor. From the beginning, RAMSI was
developed with an eye to ensuring that Australian transnational
corporations received top priority in plundering Solomon Islands’
natural resources.